| A | B |
|---|
| ANZUS Treaty (1951): | A military alliance of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. |
| Berlin Airlift (1948-1949): | a program to fly food and other supplies to West Berlin implemented after the Soviets blocked road and rail travel into the city. |
| Berlin blockade (1948-1949): | the Soviet Union's blocking of road and rail travel from West Germany to West Berlin. |
| Berlin wall (1961-1989): | a wall built around West Berlin by the East German communist government designed to keep East Germans from going to West Berlin. This wall was removed in 1989. |
| cease-fire: | an agreement by warring nations to temporarily stop fighting -- an armistice. |
| Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): | a U.S. governmental agency which gathers information, produces coordinated intelligence reports, and carries out secret activities abroad. |
| chain of command, military: | a series of officers ranked in order of authority. |
| civil liberties: | basic freedoms such as the freedom to think, speak, or act as one wishes except when specifically limited by law. |
| civil rights: | laws which guarantee equal treatment by government of all people, especially as stated in the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. |
| closed shop: | a business which has agreed with a labor union that only union members will be hired -- a business which is closed to non-union workers. |
| Fair Deal: | President Truman's program to broaden some New Deal programs such as increasing the minimum wage for interstate businesses. |
| Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI): | a governmental agency whose duty is to investigate violations of federal law. |
| freedom explosion: | a phrase describing the quick pace at which colonies, especially in Africa, gained their independence during the post-World War II period. |
| G.I.: | a member of the U.S. armed services, especially an enlisted soldier during World War II -- derived from "government issue." |
| G.I. Bill of Rights (1944): | a law formally known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act which provided low-interest loans or other benefits to World War II veterans seeking education, business opportunities, and homes. |
| international communism: | idea that the world-wide communist movement should be controlled by a single, centralized authority. |
| iron curtain: | a term referred to a restrictive Soviet-made barrier placed around the Soviet Union and other countries it dominates. These barriers have begun to disappear starting in 1989. |
| Marshall Plan (1948): | U.S. aid to help Western European countries rebuild their war-torn economies after World War II. |
| McCarthyism: | a making of unjustified accusations against people and intimidating would-be defenders of the innocent by threatening similar accusations against them -- coined after Senator Joseph McCarthy who used such methods. |
| Modern Republicanism: | a term used to describe the increasing willingness of Republicans of the post-World War II period to reject "old fashioned" laissez-faire Republican policies of the 1920s and accept the need for moderate, federal regulation of the economy. |
| national communism: | idea that national-communist parties could be independent of a centralized, international-communist party authority. |
| Nationalist Chinese: | Anti-communist Chinese who, under Chiang Kai-shek, ruled mainland China until defeated by the communists in 1949. They then retreated to the island of Formosa (Taiwan) and established a Nationalist Chinese government there. |
| Nobel Peace Prize: | prize given annually by the Nobel Foundation to an individual or group for promoting peace. The prize is named after Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, whose monies support the trust. |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): | a western military alliance formed in 1949 to defend against possible Soviet aggression in Europe. |
| platform, political party: | a statement of the principles and goals of a political party. |
| Point Four program (1950): | a program of economic aid for developing areas of the world. |
| Red Scare (1918-1920): | a time when many Americans feared that communists ("reds") were planning a communist uprising in the U.S. |
| right-to-work laws: | laws which opposed closed shops or union shops. |
| Security Council: | a body of the United Nations Organization made up of 15 members (five of which are permanent) which has the responsibility of maintaining international peace. |
| SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization): | military alliance formed in 1954 by the United States, Australia, France, New Zealand, Philippine Republic, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. |
| Taft-Hartley Act (1947): | an act which banned the closed shop (a business closed to non-union workers) and outlawed certain "wild-cat" strikes by allowing courts to delay strikes for an 80-day "cooling-off" period. |
| Truman Doctrine (1947): | statement promising aid to nations threatened by aggression or subversion. |
| Twenty-second Amendment: | constitutional amendment limiting a President to two terms. |
| union shop: | a business which has agreed with a labor union that non-union workers may be hired, but that they must join the union within a certain period of time (usually 30 days). |
| UNESCO: | United Nations agency, (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which seeks to promote educational, scientific, and cultural progress throughout the world. |
| veteran: | former member of the armed forces. |
| wage-price spiral: | the repeating cycle of increases in wages leading to increases in prices which in turn lead to demands for more increases in wages which leads to even higher prices and so on. |
| wars of national liberation: | uprisings which promise to "free oppressed peoples." |
| Warsaw Pact: | a military alliance of the Soviet Union and communist East European nations. |
| Yalta Conference (1945): | a meeting at Yalta where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin agreed on post-war policy, such as the treatment of Germany, its occupied nations, and the creation of the United Nations. |
